The Italian's Bride

‘Just what I’ve been telling that wretched woman Lucenzo insisted on hiring!’ he agreed vehemently. ‘Her ideas are as outdated as the dodo. And don’t think I haven’t tried to get rid of her—I have. But, so she informs me, she takes her orders only from Lucenzo!’

‘I expect he thinks he’s doing what’s best for you,’ Portia soothed, sympathising with every word he said but not wanting to see him getting too agitated. ‘I’ll have a word with him. I know I’d get depressed if I were shut away in a darkened room! I’m sure you’d benefit from a little stimulation, too—a few gentle outings. I’ll tell him so.’

And so she would. She might be easy-going, but she could get quite fierce over things she felt strongly about. Though getting Lucenzo to agree with her opinions might be uphill work.

‘And talking of outings—’ she gestured impulsively to the open glass doors ‘—shall we?’

‘Why not?’

His delighted grin, the way he shouted for joy when he managed to release the brake, confirmed Portia’s opinion that she was doing the right thing. She pushed the wheelchair to the far end of the long terrace, parking it beneath the dappled shade of a canopy of vines, perching herself on the stone balustrading right next to him so that she could keep her eyes on her baby, who was expressing his delight in the outing by vigorously waving his arms and legs in the air. Like a fat little beetle on its back, she thought fondly.

‘You have a beautiful home,’ she said appreciatively, ‘and I’ve never seen anything to touch these gardens. You know something? If someone could construct a temporary ramp over those steps for your chair we could take a stroll each morning before it gets too hot, all three of us.’

‘Bless you!’ His voice sounded rough round the edges and his dark eyes were suddenly suspiciously bright. ‘Portia, my dear, I swear you’re better than any tonic! A ramp for the terrace steps sounds like a splendid idea—but I warn you, I’ll be on my feet in no time and taking this little fellow fishing as soon as he can walk! And as for my family home—it’s your home now.’

Which sounded as though he believed their stay here would be permanent, Portia thought sinkingly. How could she tell him that it wasn’t, that she’d be taking his grandson back to England? Tell him she must, of course. But later, when she was sure he was stronger.

Sam was getting restless now, and, glad of the distraction, Portia swallowed the lump in her throat and took him from Eduardo’s arms, holding him over her shoulder, patting his back, rocking him.

He was due for a feed, but Lucenzo had told her to stay with his father until the nurse reappeared and she could hardly leave Eduardo on his own. So it was with some relief when she saw Assunta appear through the sliding doors. She could grandpa-sit!

‘What a happy picture you all make! I’m glad to see you enjoying the air, signor. I will take the little one. It is time.’

With a pang, Portia relinquished her tiny son. But he’d be fine with Assunta, she knew that, and wondered if she’d always feel this possessive, as if she couldn’t bear to be parted from him, even for a second.

‘Assunta will take every care of him,’ Eduardo said gently, as if he knew exactly what she was feeling. ‘She was a young girl when she came to us and has been with us ever since. She looked after Lucenzo almost from the first—Vittorio, too. I think she was both mother and father to them. I, alas, didn’t see as much of either of them as I should have done.

‘Apart from burying myself in my work at the bank, Lucenzo was away at school and, as I expect Vito told you, his mother and I parted ways when he was young. I made the mistake of allowing her to take him back to her homeland—your country. Naturally, he made regular visits throughout his growing years, but it wasn’t the same. I should never have allowed her to have custody. I could easily have stopped it. A son is a son, after all. Important.’

Would he place the same importance on a grandson? Portia thought with a plummeting heart. Would the united power of the Verdi family come into play when she announced her intention to take her son back to England, dragging her endlessly through the courts, as Lucenzo had threatened they would?

‘But enough of that.’ Eduardo regarded her smilingly before his mouth straightened. ‘I want to apologise for the way my family behaved at dinner last night. They are good-hearted people, but once they get an idea in their heads it gets stuck there. When I heard of your existence, that you’d given birth to Vittorio’s child, I had no such preconceptions. I wanted to meet you before I made up my mind as to your motivations and character. Just one look at you, a few minutes’ conversation, and anyone with a grain of sense would know you weren’t a scheming minx with her eye on the main chance! Give them time and they’ll come to their senses—or have me to answer to! I may be confined to this chair at the moment but I am still head of this family!’

‘Oh, please—’ Portia was appalled. ‘I don’t want to be the cause of any bad feelings. It doesn’t matter; it really doesn’t,’ she objected miserably.

‘It matters,’ Eduardo asserted stoutly, and then, more softly, ‘You have nothing to be ashamed of. Vito must have loved you deeply. You and he would have been married as soon as his divorce came through—it is what he would have intended. I know—knew—my son.’

His voice faltered briefly and Portia felt her heart clench with sympathy, admiring the strength of his character when he cleared his throat and continued firmly, ‘I knew he wasn’t remotely in love with his wife, and Lorna certainly wasn’t in love with him. It was fairly common knowledge. That marriage was unsatisfactory right from the start. But what can one do? Or say? You can’t live your children’s lives for them. You have to let them make their own mistakes and hope they learn from them.’

Portia swallowed jerkily. This was awful—almost as bad as the way Lucenzo viewed her: with suspicion and contempt. Like Assunta, Eduardo was seeing her affair with Vito as high romance; they didn’t know he had lied to her, deceived her in the cruellest way possible.

She certainly couldn’t shatter their illusions, which meant that her presence here was shoring up a lie. She vented a silent sigh, and was almost glad to see the hatchet face of Eduardo’s nurse as she stamped towards them and wheeled her resigned charge away with a voll

ey of staccato Italian grumblings.

Portia was very afraid she’d got Eduardo into big trouble. She should have thought things through, she decided guiltily, biting her lip, asked before she took matters into her own hands in her usual reckless fashion.

Unable to face watching Assunta feed and change little Sam while her own state of mind was in such wretched turmoil, she walked down the steps from the terrace between banks of perfumed roses. The sky was a perfect blue, the sun growing hotter and the gardens were silent apart from the sound of her feet on the narrow gravel paths that bordered the formal beds.

She had the place to herself and that helped to calm her, just a little. Lucenzo had disappeared, poor Eduardo would be shut away in that gloomy room, and the others would probably be getting ready for lunch—drinking cocktails or whatever the super-rich did to pass the morning. Whatever happened, she would not be joining them. She had enough to think about without having to squirm beneath more of their cold contempt.

Coming across a stone fountain in the centre of the paved square from which all the narrow paths radiated, she held a hand beneath the cool tumbling water, breathed in deeply and released the pent-up air on a long sigh.

And jumped two feet in the air when a lean, lightly tanned hand clamped down on her shoulder and Lucenzo said drily, ‘Sighing for your sins?’

The pressure of his fingers increased as he swung her round to face him, and a sensation of hot breathlessness swamped her, making any kind of response impossible. In the sunlight his dark eyes glinted with mesmerising silver lights, holding her immobile. She just stared at him, unable to look away, her throat going hot and dry.

She swallowed hard and flicked her tongue over her arid lips, forcing herself to say something, anything, just so he wouldn’t know how strangely he affected her.